[I must say I found this rather unsatisfying. I understand there is an
earlier book -- Bull, M (2000) Sounding
Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Every day Life,
Oxford: Berg. This looks like a subsequent essay responding to
conversations with social theorists who are trying to press their
particular interests on a rather basic account. I like some of the
theory, which includes Horkheimer and Adorno
on Odysseus -- blimey, I even have some notes on this myself! I just
don't see the point of dragging it in here. I can see that this article
attempts to generalise considerably away from the material on Walkman
use, but the level of generality seems inappropriate, to put it mildly.
Indeed, it is the sort of huge generality that Horkheimer and Adorno
are often criticised for developing -- their version of the Odysseus
myth is clearly supposed to tell us something so general and important
that we are to learn lessons about the development of individualism in
capitalism as a result. Something of the kind is attempted here -- Bull
wants to tell us something really important in general about the role
of either sound or music in the whole of human culture with its
dialectical tensions between structures and individuals, but I'm not
convinced that quoting big-hitters in support is very useful. As a
result, I have filleted this article considerably, and have noted
mostly the more specific tangible bits about why people like using
Walkmans, which is based on an ethnographic study of 60 such users. One
of the notes suggests that it is the omission of this kind of study
that provides a problem with the famous duGay text on the Sony
Walkman].

Sound is becoming increasingly important to consumer culture, and some
people clearly regard it as extremely important to the ways in which
they manage their lives. Using Walkmans helps people to create
'intimate, manageable and aestheticized spaces' (82), although there
are the usual paradoxes about consumer culture and consumer technology.
Thus 'subjects are simultaneously empowered and colonised by
sound and... it is precisely this process that makes sound so seductive
to contemporary Walkman users' (83). [Then we get into Horkheimer
and Adorno and other 'iconic historical moments of sound in
Western culture' (82), which I'm going to simply skip over]. Privatized
use of sound only exposes people to 'the sounds of the culture
industry coming directly into the user's ears' (86), although people
can use sound to 'reorganise... [their]... relation to space and
place' (87). Sound is particularly flexible and has the peculiar
quality of appearing to simply conform to the desires of consumers to
reconfigure their spaces.

The effect is described by some of the respondents in the study to be
able to impose film- like qualities to their everyday lives. Privatized
music acts as a kind of sound track, which can enhance the experience
of looking at people in different ways -- by the experience of
connecting immediate perceptions with something 'far away',
represented by Walkman sounds [as a note admits, these sounds are seen
as almost entirely made up of music, although one respondent listens to
taped books on famous novels as she walks the corresponding literary
landscapes]. This permits the user to observe other people as objects,
as 'function[s] of her own aesthetic desires' (88). Privatisation
extends to being able to avoid the reciprocal gaze, and this is how
aesthetic control works more generally. The very mundane and everyday
use of the Walkman contributes to the aesthetic control of everyday
life, rather than restricting it to appreciating objects of high
culture. [I'm reminded of the discussions of fantasy here, which also
involve an imaginary manipulation of everyday surroundings].

Listening to music on a Walkman can change the emotional atmosphere. It
also has the effect of emphasising the aural at the expense of the
visual. Private music acts as a 'necessary spark to a spectrum of
aesthetic recreations' (90). It permits a kind of 'sound tourism'
(91), with users carrying their own culture with them as they move
around: Walkman are used not only on journeys to school or work, but
are also taken on holiday [including walking holidays as above].
This has the effect of permitting a relatively detached and cool
consumerism, being able to shut out any distractions from the actual
tourist site.

Walkman users can experience a particular kind of sociality, a
'we-ness' (93). This appears to involve acknowledging that other people
are present, but resisting any kind of shared interaction with them
[listening to the radio for company would be an example]. This
particular state is reproduced by technology like the Walkman, and some
of the respondents clearly are unable to function without having
Walkmans clamped to their ears more or less permanently. [Here
and elsewhere, actual speech is quoted from the ethnographic study.
Irritatingly, these simple statements are often surrounded by high
powered philosophising and theorising]. The outside world can therefore
be 'brought into line... through a privatized yet mediated act of
cognition' (94) [told you!]. Indeed, 'When the Walkman is
switched off, the "we-ness" falls away and the user is left in a
void' (94) [these users seem to be particularly addicted and
dependent]. Switching off returns users 'to the diminished space
and duration of the disenchanted and mundane outside world' (95).

Walkman use therefore offers a utopian possibility of control over the
outside world and the people in it 'as well as being located firmly in
alienating and objectifying cultural predispositions that deny
difference within culture' (95). Their identities are preserved by
refusing any genuine encounter that might threaten them. It is a
classic example of seeking security through consumption, and the
consumption of sound seems to be particularly satisfying. 'Walkman use
can produce a powerful sense of centredness, of being in
"control"' (96). Their soundscapes become 'a utopian space of
habitation' (96) . 'Walkman sounds enable users to order and prioritise
the desire for other emotional, spatial and conceptual spaces to live
in' (96) [really lofty generalisations arising from fairly modest
discussion of some of the pleasures -- I suppose highly sensitive and
skilful Walkman users might be able to do this, especially if they are
artistic intellectuals?]. It is this desire that haunts earlier
attempts to explain the role and importance of sound and music.